Patients Helped to Stay Healthy during Ramadan

Patients in Normanton were helped to stay healthy during Ramadan thanks to a new initiative by NHS Southern Derbyshire Clinical Commissioning Group’s medicines management team, Derby Open Access Centre (DOAC) and Pak Foods.

Dr Mohammed Haque, practice staff from DOAC and pharmacists and technicians from the medicines management team were on hand at the Pak Foods Store, Normanton Road, to provide free health checks including blood pressure, blood glucose tests and height and weight measurement. Patients were given key advice on how to manage their medicines and urged to reduce the huge amounts of money wasted on prescribing medicines that are never used. It is estimated that over 300 patients attended and over a hundred blood glucose tests were taken.

In the East Midlands alone, around £30m worth of medicines are wasted every year. This money could pay for approximately 900 community nurses, 6,000 hip replacements, 42,000 cataract operations or 5,400 knee replacements.

Around 50 per cent of medicine waste is preventable so the good news is that patients, GPs and pharmacists can make a huge difference by working together to manage medicines more effectively.

“The CCG is committed to making a significant difference to the quality of healthcare for everyone in our area and we are very much aware that some communities don’t always find it easy to access health services. As the Normanton community is particularly diverse a number of patients were not registered with a GP surgery and as a result of this successful initiative we were able to give them information on the walk in centre.

“We would like to thank Dr Haque and Pak Foods for helping us to ensure that many patients stayed healthy during Ramadan. Patients were given key advice on reducing fatigue, minimising dehydration and staying healthy during the fasting month.

“One lady had come over from Pakistan two weeks earlier to care for an elderly relative. She was displaying symptoms of diabetes but was not registered with a GP surgery. The lady’s blood glucose levels were 22, which is dangerously high. I’m glad to say that she was helped to access healthcare immediately at the walk in centre.”